2008
Anne Schuette Tkacik, 83, an Army wife, homemaker and volunteer, died of pneumonia Dec. 26 at the Avalon
assisted living facility in Falls Church, where she lived.
Mrs. Tkacik accompanied her husband, an Army officer, on four foreign and five domestic tours over 17 years,
including three assignments in postwar Germany and one in Taiwan. While her husband was on assignments
overseas, she settled the family in Alexandria and managed the household and the lives of their seven children.
She was active in church and school programs at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Old Town Alexandria and was the
unofficial welcoming committee to new residents of the West Grove neighborhood in Fairfax County's Mount Vernon
area.
Mrs. Tkacik was born in Highland Park, Ill., but she came to the District at a young age. In 1942, she graduated from
Wilson High School, where she had organized the Girl Cadets as part of the school's response to World War II.
She graduated from Trinity College in Washington four years later and then joined the Republican National
Committee as an analyst in the research division, compiling voting records of Democratic congressmen for the 1946
midterm elections.
She worked for the Republicans until 1948, when she joined the Pan-American Union, the predecessor to the
Organization of American States, as a stenographer for a conference in Bogota, Colombia.
Her husband of 55 years, retired Army Lt. Col. John J. Tkacik, died in 2003.
Survivors include seven children, Mary Tkacik Grady of Oakland, Calif., Teresa Tkacik of Arlington, John Tkacik Jr. of
Alexandria, Michael Tkacik of Columbia, S.C., Peter Tkacik of Fort Mill, S.C., Thomas Tkacik of Phoenix and Stephen
Tkacik of Fairfax County; a sister, Patrice Schuette McMahon of Narragansett, R.I.; a brother, James M. Schuette of
Potomac; and 10 grandchildren.
-- Patricia Sullivan